PICOSEC: Charged particle timing at sub-25 picosecond precision with a Micromegas based detector
physics.ins-det
/ Authors
J. Bortfeldt, F. Brunbauer, C. David, D. Desforge, G. Fanourakis, J. Franchi, M. Gallinaro, I. Giomataris, D. González-Díaz, T. Gustavsson
and 30 more authors
C. Guyot, F. J. Iguaz, M. Kebbiri, P. Legou, J. Liu, M. Lupberger, O. Maillard, I. Manthos, H. Müller, V. Niaouris, E. Oliveri, T. Papaevangelou, K. Paraschou, M. Pomorski, B. Qi, F. Resnati, L. Ropelewski, D. Sampsonidis, T. Schneider, P. Schwemling, L. Sohl, M. van Stenis, P. Thuiner, Y. Tsipolitis
/ Abstract
The prospect of pileup induced backgrounds at the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) has stimulated intense interest in developing technologies for charged particle detection with accurate timing at high rates. The required accuracy follows directly from the nominal interaction distribution within a bunch crossing ($σ_z\sim5$ cm, $σ_t\sim170$ ps). A time resolution of the order of 20-30 ps would lead to significant reduction of these backgrounds. With this goal, we present a new detection concept called PICOSEC, which is based on a "two-stage" Micromegas detector coupled to a Cherenkov radiator and equipped with a photocathode. First results obtained with this new detector yield a time resolution of 24 ps for 150 GeV muons, and 76 ps for single photoelectrons.